


see it through

by ShyAudacity



Series: Riverdale Prompt Fills [22]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Archie Andrews & Betty Cooper Friendship, Arguing, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Bughead is there but not at all important to the plot, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned Fred Andrews, Multi, Post-Season/Series 02, Prompt Fill, Toy Story References, just a little squint or you'll miss it, this is longer than I thought it would be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 04:26:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14584923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyAudacity/pseuds/ShyAudacity
Summary: "The next day, Betty somehow manages to not see at school before their movie plans at his house. She goes straight to his place instead of stopping at home. When no one answers the door right away, Betty worries that he forgot about her. Then, just as she’s about to turn and go home, the front door swings open and Archie is in front of her, grinning from ear to ear.“Hey, come on in, the DVD player is ready upstairs.”She smiles back at him as they stomp up to his room. The relieved feeling only lasts a second, just until he speaks up again.“Sorry again about yesterday. Ronnie needed some last-minute help with a project for school.”Betty feels her stomach begin to twist into a knot."ORanon said: this might be a stupid prompt but imagine betty & archie getting into a fight about how he’s been so caught up in veronica that he hasn’t been there for betty & she kind of just snaps with “can you just stop being her boyfriend for 5 minutes and be my friend”





	see it through

**Author's Note:**

> I fell in love with this prompt as soon as I got it- also I don't write about these two very often, or Betty in general for that matter, so please tell me if it seems out of character! This is set post season two, or whenever summer break starts for them.
> 
> Unbeta'd and title from You've Got A Friend In Me by Randy Newman (also known as that one song from toy story that everyone knows).

Archie has been ignoring Betty. Albeit, not on purpose, but it’s still been happening, nonetheless. More and more over the last few months, Betty has been seeing less and less of Archie, despite going to the same school _and_ being neighbors.

Its not unknown to Betty that Archie has a tendency to cancel plans at the last minute, he’s been doing that ever since they were kids. Archie was supposed to come over to study for their calc final tomorrow; instead, Betty got a fourteen word text half an hour after he was supposed to be there. Usually it doesn’t bother her, but this is the sixth time he’s cancelled on her in the last month, it’s starting to get on her last nerve.

**Arch:** _Sorry, can’t make it, somethin came up. We still on for movie day tomorrow?_

She has half a mind to say no, to stand him up like he has so many times before. On the other hand, Betty and Archie haven’t had one of their movie days in months; it used to be a nearly weekly occurrence before life got in the way. She stares down at her phone, wishing she could magically find the right answer in a situation like this.

_Sure,_ she sends back, _see you then._

That night, she leaves all of her books on her desk, studying be damned for once.

***

The next day, Betty somehow manages to not see at school before their movie plans at his house. She goes straight to his place instead of stopping at home. When no one answers the door right away, Betty worries that he forgot about her. Then, just as she’s about to turn and go home, the front door swings open and Archie is in front of her, grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey, come on in, the DVD player is ready upstairs.”

She smiles back at him as they stomp up to his room. The relieved feeling only lasts a second, just until he speaks up again.

“Sorry again about yesterday. Ronnie needed some last-minute help with a project for school.”

Betty feels her stomach begin to twist into a knot.

Don’t get things confused, Betty loves Veronica to death. She’s been a great addition to their friend group- hell, she can’t imagine getting through sophomore year without Veronica. Lately, though, it feels more like Betty’s been forced to take the backseat when it comes to hanging out with Archie. Or, if she does get to see him, he’ll bring Veronica and she feels more like a tag along.

She doesn’t want to discourage her two best friends from spending time together or impede on their relationship in anyway. Betty just wants to be able to have quality time with them, without having the other one be the only thing that they converse about.

“It’s fine, Archie,” She grimaces lightly. “So, what are we watching first, it’s your turn to pick right?”

Archie and herself have the whole afternoon, so they decide on the Toy Story trilogy- even if the last one still makes both of them cry. The popcorn is perfectly salted, each of them have their preferred movie snacks and designated spots on Archie’s bed. Things are going well as far as Betty can tell.

Then, ten minutes into Toy Story 2, Betty looks over and sees Archie texting for the third time. Needless to say, she’s frustrated.

“We can turn this off if you’re bored.” She bites, a little meaner than she meant to be.

“Sorry,” He says, dropping his phone onto his chest. “Veronica was just checking in.”

“Figures.” She says under her breath.

Betty ignores the sideways glance that Archie sends her.

A few minutes later, Archie is looking at his phone again, laughing this time.

Betty clenches her hands into a fist out of habit.

“Did I tell you what happened at Pop’s the other day? Ronnie and I were there and-.”

She can’t explain why, but something inside of her snaps. Betty gets off the bed and starts speaking before she can stop herself.

“Can you stop _being her boyfriend_ for five minutes and _just be my friend_?”

Archie sits up in surprise, “What? Betty, what the hell are you-?”

“I get it, V’s your girlfriend and you love her or whatever, but my god, Arch, if I have to listen to you talk about her for another minute I think my head is going to explode.”

“What are you getting so upset about? Veronica’s your best friend.”

“That’s just it! Veronica’s my friend, but guess what, so are you! We’ve been friends for years and now suddenly it’s like I’m your personal diary just so you can talk about her all day. It’s either that or you blow me off just to spend more time with her. Hell, she isn’t even here right now and I still feel like a third wheel.” 

Archie just gapes at her as she finishes; she’s never yelled at him before, not like that, at least. A part of her feels bad, she didn’t realize that she’d been holding all of that in. The other part of her is glad she got all that off her chest, even if it wasn’t very nice.

Somewhere on the bed, in the mess of blankets, Archie’s phone vibrates, and neither one of them has to look to know who it is. Betty rolls her eyes when Archie moves to find it, then grabs her bag as she moves towards the door.

“Wait- where are you going?” Archie asks.

She whips around to face him, “I’m going home! Because I don’t want to have this fight with you right now, I… I’m tired of feeling like I have to fight with my best friends just to spend time with one of them.”

Betty leaves without another word, doesn’t let Archie give a rebuttal, barely remembers to say hi to Mr. Andrews on her way out. She gets all the way home before she realizes that they hadn’t even stopped the movie in the mess of things. For some reason, this makes her cry; after everything that just went down, crying kind of feels like the right thing to do.

***

**Veronica:** _Archie doesn’t seem like his usual self today, are you guys okay?_

It’s Betty’s turn to ignore Archie, she’s been doing it for about two days. She’s made it a point to ignore her texts from Veronica; she doesn’t know what to say that won’t make her seem like a bad friend or that she’s putting the blame on someone else. It’s easier this way, ignoring the situation until it just blows over.

Betty’s phone vibrates in front of her on the desk; Jughead’s face lights up the screen. She barely has a chance to say hello before he’s talking over her.

_“Did you and Archie get into a fight or something?”_

She sighs, “Jug-.”

_“I only ask cause he’s been moping around the trailer for two days. The last time I saw him like this was the Back to School formal.”_

“Do you really have to bring that up right now?”

_“Sorry, I just-.”_

“Look, Jughead, I know that you wanna help and I love you for it, but this is mine and Archie’s issue to deal with so please- just leave it alone, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Betty hangs up before he can interject again, lets her phone clatter onto the desk. She hides her face in her hands; the last thing that she wanted was to pull everyone else into this conversation, and now she’s done exactly that. This whole thing is like some bad, teen drama show- one that no one would want to watch, for that matter.  

She groans internally when there’s a knock on her door.

“Can it wait, Mom? I’m not in the mood.”

When she doesn’t get a response, Betty turns around in her seat, surprised when she sees Archie standing in the doorway.

He has an almost shameful look on his face.

“Can we talk… please?”

It takes Betty less than two seconds to make up her mind. Five minutes later, they’re sitting on the front steps to her house, waiting for the other one to speak up.

“If you’re expecting an apology then-.”

“No,” Archie interrupts. “I’m not, it’s- I don’t really know where to start.”

Betty runs her tongue along the inside of her bottom lip, nods even thought she isn’t looking at him.

“I’m sorry that I yelled,” She tells him, only somewhat sincere. “I can’t say that I’m sorry about what I said, though.”

“I didn’t expect you to be, you had- still have every right to be mad.”

“I don’t like being mad at you. And I know that’s not fair to be upset with you for spending time with Veronica, I guess I’m still getting used to the idea of sharing you, as weird as that sounds.”

“I’m sorry that you felt swept aside; I wasn’t trying to.”

“I know, I know you weren’t… so what do we do? How do we fix this?”

“I don’t know,” Archie mumbles.

Betty drops her shoulders, feeling defeated. This isn’t how she wanted to start her summer. She’s about to give up and go inside when Archie speaks up again.

“How about this, starting this week, for the rest of the summer, we have movie night once a week. No boyfriends or girlfriends or cellphones, just the two of us, like it was when we were kids. I know that it’s not a perfect fix but- it’s a start, right?”

Betty practically beams with joy; she thinks it’s one of the best ideas that he’s ever had.

“That sounds great, Arch.”

Archie smiles right back at her, then looks over his shoulder.

“Are you busy? Do you wanna go to Pop’s, get a shake or somethin’?”

“I’d love that- actually, we should invite Veronica and Jughead, too?”

Archie quirks an eyebrow at her, “Really? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Betty says, suddenly sure of herself. “The summer break isn’t going to last forever. Besides, there’s no such thing as spending too much time with your friends, right?”

Archie smiles again, and Betty thinks that maybe this summer won't be so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Is anyone else nervous for the end of this season?
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments/Kudos/Any other praise is greatly appreciated. If you wanna talk riverdale you can find me on tumblr as archieandrewsprotectionsquad. Thanks again for reading, have a great day!


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